At 15 minutes to show time, the mother of all celebrity traffic jams converged around the backstage bathrooms, as Jared Leto tilted his head back to put drops in his eyes, John Travolta and Robert De Niro kibitzed about Travolta's Florida home, and Martin Scorsese drifted past, unnoticed.

A vocal and supportive audience watched DeGeneres' opening monologue from the wings, as Jamie Foxx (with a cellphone in each hand), Kerry Washington and Anne Hathaway laughed at her jokes, especially the naughty ones.

"That's hilarious," Foxx shouted at an off-color line DeGeneres directed at Jonah Hill.

Foxx may win the prize for most supportive celebrity of the evening. When Leto won the first Oscar of the night, Foxx declared that the "Dallas Buyers Club" actor's speech had given him chills. And when the backup dancers who performed "Happy" emerged from the stage, he slapped them high fives and declared, "Great job!"

Occasionally the scene backstage was a surreal clashing of moods.

As a teary Lupita Nyong'o continued her emotional acceptance speech on a backstage camera for online thank you's and academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs breathed deeply to compose herself for her stage entrance, the smell of pizza wafted into the wings.

For the stage managers, Oscar night is a game of celebrity lost and found. "They can't find Whoopi," a stage manager said into her headset about presenter Whoopi Goldberg. "She's not in her seat."

Goldberg was soon located in an elevator — and delivered to wardrobe for a dress steam while carrying her red high heels.

Actors often greet each other with the universal celebrity hello ("I love your work"), but backstage on Oscar night, no one got warmer welcomes than presenter Daniel Day Lewis. Outside the men's room, Efron said to the "Lincoln" star, "Thank you for everything you do." Meeting at a monitor, Sidney Poitier said, "My pleasure to see you, my good son." And after Alfonso Cuarón won the directing Oscar and saw Day-Lewis he said simply, "You!"

Even when she doesn't win, Jennifer Lawrence manages to enliven Oscar night backstage.

"That's the envelope for Chiwetel Ejiofor," Lawrence teased McConaughey as he clasped his winning envelope.

As the best picture nominees were announced, she noted the lack of applause in the theater for her film, "American Hustle."

"Thanks, guys, for your support. Jesus, could it be more quiet?"

And when "12 Years a Slave" won, she charged toward the stage, saying, "I'm going out there! Where do the losers go?"